Why Dubai is home to this Saudi expatriate who set foot here at the age of 16
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Read the full story here: https://bit.ly/36QbVsV
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #SaudiArabia #Dubai
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NewsTranscript
00:00In the beginning I did not, I wasn't happy with the move. I was, you know, I was young and I had my friends there and my life there.
00:09Hello everyone. I guess everyone knows how Dubai is home to many expats.
00:15And with me today is one expat. He's from Saudi originally.
00:19His name is Aziz Alharbi and he's here to tell us why Dubai is home to him.
00:25I moved here in 2003. I was about 14 years old.
00:28And in the beginning I did not, I wasn't happy with the move.
00:32I was, you know, I was young and I had my friends there and my life there.
00:36So when my parents told me that we're moving to Dubai, I was like, oh, I'm not sure if I'm going to like it here.
00:42And now, you know, 16 years later, it's my home really.
00:47Since 2003 until now, I consider Dubai really my home.
00:51How did it all start for you? Like what's your educational background? Let's start with that.
00:56So when I moved to Dubai, I attended the American School of Dubai and I did my high school there.
01:02And being in the American school and being, you know, half American, my mother from Seattle, Washington,
01:07I was always intrigued and I knew that I wanted to study in the United States.
01:12So I'm from the West Coast, but I wanted to get away from that side and go to the East Coast.
01:17So I attended Boston University. So I went to the School of Management there.
01:21At the time it was called School of Management. Now they've changed it to Qualcomm School of Management.
01:25And I studied finance. Now I'm not in finance now, but I studied it and it's a great background to have.
01:31I'm happy that I did study finance. After a couple of years, I decided that this isn't really what I want to study.
01:36It was too late. So I continued that major, but I added an operation management major.
01:42I also added a minor in economics. So I have a nice trio of topics that I studied.
01:49So when I studied operation management, I fell in love with that field and I knew that's where I wanted to be.
01:56I came back to Dubai and I worked in consulting for a couple of years for a hotel management company.
02:03And then I had a meeting with our current CEO and chairman, Mr. Anis Al-Jallaf.
02:10And we sat down and he told me his idea of what he wants to create in robo stores.
02:17I remember he showed me videos of these robots moving around and there's nothing like it here in the region.
02:26So it's something new and I can see his vision of what he wants to create.
02:30I also saw at the time the real move towards e-commerce and online and the e-commerce world.
02:39And Amazon, of course, was booming from then till now.
02:43And I thought this is a really cool and unique opportunity.
02:47And I was hooked ever since that day.
02:50So four years later, we have robo stores fulfilling for the e-commerce industry in the MENA region.
02:56Where do you want to go next?
02:58I want to continue life and my career in Dubai.
03:02So robo stores now has one center fulfilling for multiple companies across the world in the region and worldwide.
03:10We do deliver worldwide.
03:12Our idea is to take this concept, to take this company and replicate it in different regions, different markets, different countries.
03:20Whether it's Egypt or Saudi Arabia or even the free zone here have multiple in the UAE.
03:25And just expand what we're doing to really help the e-commerce world in the UAE.
03:31How interesting is this story of Aziz Alharbi for more on his profile.
03:37Do read the story in Gulf News.
03:39For now, this is Anjana Kumar for Gulf News.